Ondra Completes Third 5.15c First Ascent

12/5/13 - The 20-year-old Czech climber Adam Ondra has redpointed his third 9b+ (5.15c) first ascent, this time in his home country. Ondra spent 20 to 25 days over two years working on Vasil Vasil at Sloup, a limestone crag near Brno, his home town.

"It's definitely not a mega line," Ondra wrote on his 8a.nu scorecard. "It is painful, short, and in dirty place. But it was there. I bolted it five years ago, and I couldn't leave it unclimbed."

Ondra described Vasil Vasil as seven meters (23 feet) of "burly 8b" into a V14 boulder problem, with a single move that is "at least 8B (V13)."

"It is basically one-mover," Ondra wrote. "Very frustrating process of making no progression for long days, but when it finally happened, on super cold, sticky day, it felt like nothing."

The name Vasil Vasil is a pun on La Dura Dura, the 5.15c route in Spain that Ondra climbed in February for its first ascent. "The opposite of 'Dura Dura" in Spanish is "Facil Facil," and making it sound more Czech is Vasil Vasil, which coincidentally means male T-shirt without sleeves. It used to be just a preliminary name, as I started working on it in a similar period as La Dura Dura and it was seemingly easier. Implententing a new name would be artificial now [and] I won't go for that, even though it is not very poetic name, for sure!"

The redpoint on December 4 caps an extraordinary year for Ondra. After climbing the world's first 9b+ in Norway last year, Ondra snagged the first ascent of La Dura Dura (9b+) in Spain last winter, and then returned to Norway this August and September and did four more 5.15 first ascents: two 5.15a routes and two 5.15b routes, including one he described as one of his hardest ever. In all, in 2013, he has redpointed nine 5.15 routres.

Ondra said he would take the rest of December off from climbing, and then go to Spain for two and a half weeks after school exams in January. He then plans to "start training rigorously for the comp season."